Morgan Sully's Field Reports

A Couple Tools I Made for Internet Listening

Morgan Sully — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:26:43 -0600

A key skill of any knowledge worker or online community manager is the ability to listen to the internets. A lot of engagement around topics, brands or issues important to their particular line of work is important to building their professional capacity. However, a lot of engagement sometimes happens on websites not their own (or their organization's). How do you monitor and track this? Where are these conversations and engagements happening on the internet and how can you find them without getting lost? 'Listening' is the obvious answer, but how?

Here's two tools I developed for listening, as well as use cases for them. I included links to related tutorials at the end of the post.

A "Federated Search" of NAMAC's Membership:

A 'federated search' is term used to describe a restricted search across a specific list of websites. They work particularly well for 'association' type organizations/businesses. They provide a great way to search JUST the websites comprising the 'federation' of websites affiliated with an org or business. In less than 15 minutes, I built one for my org:

http://www.namac.org/federated-search-beta

Here's how I used mine:

I really like the idea of 'independent makers' in our Membership, but am also curious how it ties into our policy initiatives.

As I know 'policy' is as important to NAMAC's direction as our Member base, I did a search to see if 'independent makers' is being spoken about alongside 'policy' issues in our Membership.
I did a search using the Google Custom Search tool I made and found: http://tinyurl.com/independentmakerssearchresults
While the results indicate that the idea of 'independent makers' is not tied very strongly to policy within our Membership (or at least not mentioned on their websites) - the idea IS out there among a few members:

Center for Social Media in their Next Generation Strategy for Media Democracy and Participatory Culturementioned it as a very strong idea in the Free Culture Conference in 2006 (according to ther PDF) - they also have a list in the PDF of participants in the conference (some are CTC VISTA recipients!)
Standby Program has it as an actual word in their mission statement
Experimental TV Center has been speaking about it since 1980!

From this, we can start to think a little bit of how to 'connect the dots' strategically within the context of net-"working" our Membership as well as ask a few more questions to further our inquiry:

Where else might our Membership might be expressing a voice on these topics (any suggestions, dear reader?)?
Where else might interconnections be found?
If not found else where, might it be something we build out?
How might the Advocacy and Policy area (or any new site area) fit in?
What are key organizations (aside form the ones found here) should we follow?

An Aggregated Online 'Listening Post':

This one was fun to make and had some nice ingredients:

RSS feeds from a few NAMAC Members
'RSS-ified' searches of a few key topics/terms
A flexible 'aggregator' to house all the information (I used NetVibes)

Here's the results of mashing up the above ingredients: http://www.netvibes.com/namac-listening-post

I won't go in to too much detail here, of a use case, but I do refer to it occasionally, just to get a 'pulse' of what's happening. I think of it as like a personal cnn.com, but for our Membership instead. Ideally, our org's own website would function a bit like this (but it'd of course look cooler:)

Conclusion:
This is stuff I think about all the time while I'm in my decision making process around technology and engagement on social networks. I'd imagine that one's community is the first and best resource for any kind of movement building/social change - that's why we're here, right?

Here's links to the related tutorials:

How To Set Up a Google 'Federated Search' For Membership/Association-based NPOs

How To Stay Informed On CTC VISTA Using RSS and Google Alerts

Field Report #9: 3 Essential Drupal Modules

Morgan Sully — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:40:12 -0600

So this past month was pretty tedious and slow. As some of you may or may not know, I am currently migrating my org's current website into a new, Drupal-based web 2.0 friendly site. There were nearly 1500 pages from the old site to import,
and much of the (great) content on the old site also remained buried beneath many, many pages - there were no RSS feeds on anything, no bookmarking services built in, and no browsable tag clouds - basic characteristics of web 2.0 sites.

Luckily, most of pages were were outdated and were able to be deleted. However, there were still many tedious bits to the importing - where should they go? How should the specific pieces of content be categorized? Was there a space for them on the new site? What would those new spaces looks like? How can the content be easy to find? Do all the links on this page still work???

My goal was to make the content as easy to browse and share as possible, increase it's ambient findability .

Overview of Modules Used
Central modules that I used on the site included Views, Panels and Taxonomy Node Operations - all three of these made for some fun and challenging work.

Taxonomy Node Operations:
This was a very helpful module. When i imported all of the content from the old site (which took about a week of tweaking to get just right - i was getting all sorts of odd characters and HTML showing up in posts) none of it was categorized. What this module does, is allow a 'mass categorization' of content from the content administration page in Drupal. I of course had to go in and create the categories first, but once done, categorizing the content was easy.

Views:
Views I used in order to create 'landing pages' for particular areas of the site (which were defined by the kinds of content appearing in each). For instance, there is a section of the site called 'Capacity Building' Capacity Building is a service that we offer and on the page that had info about this service(s), i wanted to have all articles having to do with 'fundraising' (synonymous with capacity building) appear there as well. So, all articles on the site which had to do with 'fundraising' I tagged/categorized as such and viola! they now appear on the landing page of our 'Capacity Building' section. I used this technique throughout the site for various sections...

Panels:
This is great module for configuring how you want a page to display. It's a bit like putting Drupal blocks and Views into specified sections (panels) of a page. The front page and the 'Policy and Advocacy Network' pages are both Panels.

I also started playing around the general look and feel of the site through a hacked Drupal theme (SEO Position).

Click on the images below to see before and after screenshots of what I've done so far:

BONUS Field Report: How to Stay Financially Stress-free On a VISTA Budget

Morgan Sully — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:14:25 -0600

Hello There VISTAs,

As a special BONUS Field Report, I decided to write about some money management tools/tips I came across recently. As a VISTA, money can be tight. If mismanaged, then money can be REALLY tight. If you're like me, than you were probably used to subsisting at a certain standard of living before becoming a VISTA (or not). You're suddenly having to figure out other ways to get to work, find the best deals on food and sacrifice things you thought you'd never live without. Having to reorganize your spending and budgeting habits can be pretty stressful.

However, the transition in to VISTAhood doesn't have to be as traumatic or hard on you financially, provided that you use your new found poverty (or stable paycheck!) as an opportunity to develop a strong spending and budgeting regimen.

In this field report, I'll give a brief overview of an automated Monthly Budget Calculator (attached at the end of this report) I'll also share with you the awesomeness of stress-free bank account automation - a nice little series of hacks to take the stress out of paying your monthly bills, build your savings and STILL have a little left over for that *Deluxe* bowl of Top Ramen.

Understanding Your Budget

Part of staying stress free during times of financial hardship is having a clear understanding of your financial obligations and limitations. It's also nice to know where you might a have a little more 'wiggle room' for those enticing moments (or unexpected expenses) that inevitably come along the way during these times.
Included at the end of this report is a *Monthly Budget Calculator. You will notice 4 columns in it: Income, Fixed Expenses, Variable Expenses and Totals.

Income:
In this column, there are two sub columns. One is simply for labeling your income source(s) - my hope is that you take this calculator with you where ever you may go. I've conveniently entered in 'AmeriCorps Stipend' for you as well as the monthly income ($800) for a VISTA serving in San Diego - this may be different dependent on the city and state you are serving in. You can change the $800 amount to fit what ever yours is.

Fixed Expenses:
Here is where you will list each of your fixed expenses and other monthly bills, like 'Rent', 'Savings', and 'Cell phone'. I've entered in some 'filler' numbers for these - change to fit your situation.

Variable Expenses:
These are expenses that can vary by month. Food is sometimes the most variable of these which can be either a good thing or bad thing (do let your supervisor or VISTA Leader know if you are running low on food - they're there to help and there are plenty of resources out there). Transportation is another one, like if you decide to bike to work one day instead of taking the bus or you end up carpooling. I usually try to round this up a bit, just in case - any extra left over can either go to my savings or for some extra 'discretionary income' (see below).

Totals:
Here is where all the magic happens. If you've been changing the numbers around in the other parts of the spreadsheet, you may have noticed that the numbers here change AUTOMATICALLY to reflect the changes you've made. Immediately, you can see where your money is going, the total of your expenditures as well as any 'Discretionary Income' you may have left over. This is income you can use as you wish: a visit to the book store, the movies or maybe even partially back in to your savings - savings are after all, an investment in your future.
Now that you've got a tool and framework for understanding what your monthly budget is, where your expenses are going and even how much 'extra' money you have available, the next step is to ensure that the right money goes to the right places and that you can do this all on time - without stressing.

Think you can't do it? Read on.

Getting Bills Paid On Time = Less Stress = Happy VISTA

A major cause of financial stress is bills. Well, not necessarily the bills them selves, but having to PAY them - especially if there is some unexpected expense that comes up during your VISTA year. While you can't do away with these completely, there are a few things you can do to be in strong financial standing.

Hack Your Bank: Automating Multiple Checking Accounts are Key to Avoiding Financial Stress

An oft over-loooked fact about most checking accounts is that you can set up automatic withdrawals and deposits. You can divide and disperse deposits made to your bank account across multiple checking/savings accounts, pay bills to specific utilities automatically and even mail checks - all by specific dates. All of these can be further set up to occur on regular, repeating dates (which works nicely as your AmeriCorps stipend also occurs on a regular, repeating date - hint, hint).

You can also set up multiple accounts to work in concert with your saving, checking and bill paying automation. When you first got your bank account, you most likely got a checking account and savings account. Referring back to our Monthly Budget Calculator tool, you can also set up another checking account for 'Fixed Expenses' - think of it as your specific 'bill paying' account. Used in conjunction with the automatic check dispersement of your VISTA Stipend deposit mentioned above, automatic bill payment from this new account takes the hassle out of writing and mailing a check or paying over the phone close to the time your bill is due. Just be sure the monthly amount in this account matches what you came up with previously in your Budget Calculator.

Setting all this up is usually free, takes just a few minutes and can work wonders for reducing stress.
All this so you can enjoy the finer things in life, like whether to get 'Oriental' flavor Top Ramen or 'Deluxe Oriental' flavor Top Ramen.

What are some other ways that YOU maximize and manage your VISTA Stipend?

*This 'calculator' is in Excel format (but you can open it in any program that read .xls files).

Field Report # 13: And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor...

Morgan Sully — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:13:42 -0600

And now, a word from our sponsor...

"During your VISTA year, you may sometimes come to challenges that you thought you might not be able to overcome. You might think that that last bowl of ramen was pretty damn horrid, or you may even be questioning the integrity of choosing to serve your comunity for a year at poverty level when you've STILL got that mortgage you're trying to pay off (or maybe you haven't even got on yet - doesn't everybody have one?).

Well, we here at the CTC VISTA Project have only one thing to say..."

Are YOU 'hangin tough'?

Hangin' Tough
by the New Kids On the Block

Intro... Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh
(Verse) Listen up everybody if you wanna take a chance
Just get on the floor and do the New Kids dance
Don't worry about nothing cause it won't take long
We're gonna put you in a trance with the funky song
Cause you gotta be...
(Chorus) Hangin' tough
Singing tough
Singing tough
Are you tough enough?
Hangin' tough
Singing tough
Singing tough
We're rough
Oh Oh Oh Oh x2
(Verse) Everybody's always talking about who's on top
Don't cross our paths cause you're gonna get stopped
We ain't gonna give anybody any slack
And if you try to keep us up we're gonna come right back
And you know it...
(Chorus)
Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh x4
(Music Break)
(Verse) Get loose everybody cause we're gonna do our thing
Cause you know it ain't over till the fat ladyt sings
Check it out...
(Music Break)

(well, actually two more things)
|
|
|
V

Have YOU 'kept on truckin''?

And lastly...

Do YOU have the Eye of the Tiger?

Eye of the Tiger
by Survivor

Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

Chorus:
It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds 'til we take to the street
For we kill with the skill to survive

chorus

Risin' up, straight to the top
Have the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive

chorus

The eye of the tiger (repeats out)...

You can also print out the lyrics to either sing along OR simply post them in your place of work for words of inspiration during times of none.

Field Report #12: Board Report = Field Report!

Morgan Sully — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:33:55 -0600

So... as I had to write this for a Board Report (tip: writing Field Reports is a bit like writing Board Reports;), I thought I would include it here as a Field Report. It details what I have done over the past 6 months as NAMAC's Online Community Manager.

Maybe someone might find some things in it that are helpful to them in planning, developing and implementing a website. There were many challenges along the way - much of it was simply just me NOT KNOWING HOW TO DO SOMETHING - but of course, much of it was assuaged by leveraging the knowledge of my CTC VISTA/peer network (i.e. Hey Josh King - how do i access MySQL through Terminal? Hey Ben, so how do i do a mysqldump again? - cheers dudes!)

----------------------------

Overview:
While I was recruited as a VISTA to be NAMAC’s Online Community Manager, much of my work has revolved around comprehensive preparation and redevelopment of the site for the work this position entails. This work included heavy site analysis (how it works vs. how it could work) as well as the resolution of many high volume site migration and server issues. The workload has required more time and technical skill than initially expected, but marked a necessary refinement in work responsibilities to prepare the groundwork for NAMAC’s online community management.

Throughout the process I was able to get the support I needed, while developing innovative ideas to increase NAMAC’s future online capacities. Much of the support came from engaging a national network of fellow VISTAs, online community developers and the Drupal open-source community.

Our initial site launch is set for late April with a concerted effort to engage and welcome members and other stakeholders to the new site. There will still be various kinks to work out once launched, but the site will still be flexible enough to adapt and resolve these issues if need be.

Site Migration:
Throughout this process, I have:

Acted as liaison between CAMT, the 9th Street IT department and NAMAC staff to troubleshoot web migration issues as they arose
Engaged with national and local developer communities to resolve data migration and other web development issues
Successfully imported all pages from the old site into a new custom-built development site

Site Development:
The major brunt of my work has been on ensuring that new feature requests from staff are indeed doable in Drupal – the chosen content-management system for the new site. In keeping with my work plan to ‘build for web 2.0 platforms’ I had to ensure utmost flexibility of the site to adapt to current and future online community and Internet trends.

With these requirements and goals in mind, I:

Researched, implemented and tested best Drupal ‘modules’ to match with NAMAC feature requests
Consulted with national networks of online community developers, knowledge management consultants, and Drupal developers both online and offline
Lead weekly site development discussions with staff to resolve design issues and develop new areas for online community interactivity
Integrated feedback from staff into various site areas

I have also documented all site work done on an internal staff wiki and am compiling a list of resources and training materials for future staff to use. I am also training and orienting staff to new administrative features while drafting an initial strategy for the site’s online growth, support and member engagement.

New Site Areas
With the collaborative efforts of Jack, Helen, Amanda and Dewey, I was able to design and implement new site areas to offer our Members.

These include:
The Idea Exchange
Keeping in mind our slogan to ‘energize independent voices in the media arts’ this new area is a hybrid of our current Hot Topics and Get Connected areas.

Key features of this area include:

User submitted articles
Newly enabled commentary on all articles posted to the site
Social bookmarking functionality built in to all articles posted
Cross linking of articles to site users and Member Organization pages

The Face of the Field
This section of the site is a multimedia, editorial-like section curated by NAMAC Staff. It is meant to feature the work and diversity of NAMAC’s national membership.

It accomplishes this by offering the following sections:

Featured Leaders: leaders in the field highlighted each month
Featured Organizations: a highlighted member organization and what they do
User-submitted articles (pulled from the Idea Exchange)
Current members events, announcements and job postings
Links to browse and search our new and improved Member Directory

Advocacy and Policy
This area will feature policy issue briefs and analysis cultivated by NAMAC staff. There will also be handpicked articles and RSS feeds from our media policy and advocacy partners featured here.
Job Bank and Member Directory
Both of these have been rewritten and there is now an interactive Google map that visually displays clickable locations of our member organizations across the country.

Other Features
There have also been a host of new web 2.0 features we developed in the past few months.

A brief list follows:

Ability for users to write their own categories for what they post and read on the site
RSS subscribable Telesalon podcasts with embedded, playable and downloadable audio
WYSIWYG formatting editor built in to content posting forms
New and improved Member Directory area with sortable columns for Member Organization, State and Year Founded
New and improved Job Bank with sortable columns for Organization Name, Job Location, Type and Deadline
Ability to cross-reference Member Organizations in Articles
Member Organization pages linking all articles and users associated with that organization on one ‘group’ page

Other Accomplishments
Other tasks I finished were:

Coordinating the collection of online NAMAC Conference media from members
Tracking and commenting on relevant blog posts from conference attendees (members and otherwise)
Creating a new section on the current site to host post-conference articles, images, and video
Coordinating and facilitating a panel discussion to represent the CTC VISTA Project at NAMAC’s conference
Signed up and created various web 2.0 service accounts for NAMAC (Flickr, del.icio.us, blip.tv)

In maximizing my status as an AmeriCorps VISTA, I am also seeking and acquiring sponsorship for continued professional development in the field of web development and online strategy.

Future Directions
From my experiences over the course of my VISTA service, I envision NAMAC’s web and online community strategy evolving in to the future as such:

My hope is that the above plan might serve as an initial launching point for discussion between NAMAC Board, Staff and the Online Community Manager.

Field Report #11: The Importance of Knowing Your Neighbors

Morgan Sully — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:14:09 -0600

The N-TEN Conference and Meeting Other VISTAs

Photo: bensheldon

The N-TEN Conference was fantastic. Aside from the high-quality speakers, panels and opportunities for meeting other professionals working in the field of non-profit technology, I was fortunate enough to meet up with Ben, Kevin, Wes, Karl, Ashley and Anita from the CTC VISTA Project. We also had a special surprise visit from CTC VISTA Alum Jessica McCoy as well as another AmeriCorps Alum Jules (who we'd previously met at the NAMAC Austin Conference in October!).

Opportunities like this, I feel are crucial to supporting VISTAs during their respective years of service.

The conferences that VISTAs are 'mandated' to attend via their org/Project agreements are EXCELLENT opportunities for VISTAs own professional development. I for one came away feeling more knowledgeable, empowered and inspired to continue my work.

Panels I enjoyed attending were:

Changing Your CEO from Barrier to Partner

Project Management for Techies: Delivering on Time and Budget

Building, Growing, and Sustaining a Vibrant Online Community – How to Reach Beyond Traditional Tools into the Web 2.0 Sphere

Photo: bensheldon

The face-to-face OFFLINE interaction with our national network of VISTAs is priceless in adding a sense of value, shared experience and belonging to something bigger than ourselves COMMUNITY. It's half of what we as CTC VISTAs do...

New Orleans
On a personal note, another highlight for me was the impromptu tour that Ben, Kevin and myself were given by Lisa Stansky from Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (who are also hiring a CTC VISTA for this upcoming VISTA cycle). We were given a very sobering tour of many parts of New Orleans that still, three years later, are being rebuilt after the 'storm':

I
waterlines on houses
stained where water had risen trapping and drowning people inside their homes
where people died
spray painted x's like graffiti on people's homes
marking where people still might be able to recover bodies or animals
perhaps still living
perhaps not
dead animals in attics
II
impromptu mini economies of resilience
and resourcefulness amidst little
schools and libraries becoming community centers
churches with broken windows still but with people singing gospel
people, families children dressed for church among demolished houses
III
and a kind stranger inviting us into our home
a cheerleader for New Orleans
IV
a lively city
people come to rebuild during the day until they can't anymore
party at night and then back to their tents under the freeways amidst the educated and homeless
only to do it again
the next day

As AmeriCorps VISTA Members, I feel we are very fortunate to be part of a national program that helps people out of poverty, increase literacy AND allows us to develop our potential as professionals in the public sector. There is still so much that we as AmeriCorps (and beyond) can do to help our communities.

The one 'take away' I can think of from my trip to New Orleans was on the importance of knowing your neighbors. After the storm came, many neighborhoods were simply eradicated. Houses were simply picked up and then deposited two blocks down, perhaps on someone else's property. Sometimes exquisite old mansions laid tattered, while more poor-looking homes remained intact. Other areas had pristine houses - separated by only a few feet in elevation - standing proudly amidst it's peers, now in shambles. It was as if the lines of people's property and class and race were perhaps uncomfortably, necessarily pushed together, merged or erased.

It was as if God had taken a giant Etch-A-Sketch and shaken the neighborhoods (I saw) up.

The importance of knowing your neighbors I think, is the single most important part of being the community builders that we are. When there is strife in the world (only aggrevated by the terribleness of poverty), it's important to be aware that communities can in fact come together to bridge lines of class and race. I don't think we should have to wait until tragedy forces us to. Perhaps in our arrogance it's necessary.

I'd like to think not.

Field Report #10: Reconciling 'Capacity Building' with 'Fighting Poverty'

Morgan Sully — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:24:45 -0700

So the past few weeks have seen some pretty exciting things happening around the website I'm developing for NAMAC. We've had some good conversations around how we will build it out, what the different parts will look like and what benefit we will be able to offer our members. Building out our website with the new technologies (previously unavailable through our current site or to NAMAC as a whole) will certainly be a bit 'disruptive' at first and I'm a little nervous.

Our website has a national readership from people across the field of media arts and technically, has had quite a bit of extensive customization. It's development is coming along well, if a bit tedious at times. LOTS of technical tweaks, multiple module/theme installs, TONS of learning about even more intricacies of Drupal throughout. I've also done a few custom PHP hacks in the code of certain modules and am looking forward to learning more about PHP (which my org has offered to support via paying for classes - sweet!).

In all of this technical service though, sitting behind the computer screen and making sure all the various bugs are worked out of the system, making sure things appear and function correctly - I can't help but think I'm missing something important to my service as a VISTA - working to end poverty. This is a HUGE part of what it means to be a VISTA. This is part of our underlying mission in all of the work that we do and as VISTAs we are situated at the tail end of a long history of national public service through AmeriCorps. It is this idea, that I feel is at the core of being a VISTA.

Yet here I am, sitting in an office, looking at lines and lines of code, PHP and Excel spreadsheets - far removed from the people/communities who VISTA supposedly helps. I feel like I'm having a bit of VISTA 'mid-year crisis'. Is the work I am doing really helping people? Will it really help people?

I imagine that this is a common issue for other VISTAs who do a lot of 'capacity building' work - particularly the more 'technical' work, like database management, IT systems planning, etc. My work is certainly that, but the day to day interaction I've previously had with people in the computer labs, youth centers and drop-in centers - direct-service - is amiss. To see the immediate effect of things I did with people to help them along their way - whether helping a homeless kid write a resumé, taking a former speed addict to a college 'open house', or even showing someone how to register for an email address were so gratifying and I could take great pride in doing those things - it also kept me pretty humble to the things in life I was lucky to have or achieved.

Currently, the thing that keeps me going - and which guides most all decisions around the design and implementation of the new system - is an idea. The idea is to use the website as a member knowledge management platform for the field - a resource that people in the field of media arts can trust as a guide to galvanize field-wide development and innovation, an idea that people can rally around in support of NAMAC's own mission to "energize independent voices in the field of media arts". Luckily, it's a vision that many of our member orgs share and it also happens to tie in with my own aspirations in life.

Being here at NAMAC as a VISTA has put me on a good career path for professional development in the field of knowledge management and my org is certainly supportive of it, but I still have my occasional difficult patches along this path opening up as I imagine other VISTAs do on their own paths. And there's still the need to bring our communities out of poverty - our mission as VISTAs.

It's been said that "No one is free when others are oppressed". Challenges mean growth, right?

My question to anyone reading this, particularly CTC VISTAs is:

How do you reconcile not being able to see the immediate effects of what you do in your 'capacity building' as a CTC VISTA with the AmeriCorps mandate of 'helping to alleviate illiteracy and poverty'? Isn't that what most of us became VISTAs for? To serve our communities, fight the bad guys of poverty and illiteracy and perhaps, if we're lucky, get a good start to a sweet career path?

What are your thoughts?

Field Report #8: A Leader's Visit to the Oakland Technology Exchange

Morgan Sully — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:21:31 -0700

This past Friday I had the quiet pleasure of visiting one of our program sites, the Oakland Technology Exchange. I had the opportunity to hang out there for nearly two hours talking shop with one of our VISTAs, Naomi Jimenez. I also got to visit a VISTA Alumni from my class, Jeff Benton AND even had a surprise visit from D.U.S.T.Y. Director and Co-Founder, Michaelangelo James, who won the 2006 Toni Stone Innovative Initiative Award at the CTCNet Conference I attended during my first VISTA year!

When I arrived, I was warmly greeted by Jeff Benton who walked me in and gave
me a brief tour of the OTX computer recycling warehouse. From OTX's website, "OTX-West is dedicated to eliminating the digital divide in Oakland, California. [They] do this by refurbishing surplus computers, educating families and providing ongoing access and support to those who have received our computers. The experiences of OTX-West over the past 6 years has [sic] demonstrated both the need for home computers in the community and the reuse model as a green way to meet the need."

Their warehouse was stacked full of old computers and hardware from all around the Bay Area. Bits of circuit boards, mice, keyboards, towers, monitors, hard drives and just about any other computer component you can think of were stacked, strewn and than stacked again about the warehouse creating mazes of a reused technological past awaiting to build the future. In deed, OTX's mission statement proudly claims, "Reusing the past...to build the future".

At the center of all of this was CTC VISTA Naomi Jimenez. Before I met Naomi, I had the pleasure of reading Danielle Martin's copious notes on previous conference calls with Naomi and was pleasantly affirmed in my positive proclivities to Naomi. From her reiterations on the necessity of recycling technology for a sound ecological, political and economic future, to her beaming proudly while explaining the so called 'grunt work' she had done there as a VISTA, it was clear that Naomi embodied the very spirit of what OTX was all about. I could tell by the way the staff interacted with her that she was a very valuable asset to OTX.

The continued tour Naomi gave me was wonderful. We walked about the warehouse and Naomi showed me many of the other rooms and spaces at OTX's facility. From the ghosting stations opposite the 'store' where people could 'pay' for refurbished computers with volunteer time to the 'mini-museum' of old Commodores and Atari computers near the kids room (where parents could leave their kids so they could volunteer and take classes!) - I was treated to a very comprehensive tour. As a former Food Bank Warehouse Operations Coordinator (who's now a CTC VISTA!), I was duly impressed by the tight integration of recycling and reusing supposed 'technological detritus' with community empowerment. OTX is in deed a wonderful example of community technology at it's finest.

As a final treat, we had a surprise visit from Michaelangelo James, Co-founder and Executive Director of Digital Underground Storytelling For Youth (D.U.S.T.Y.). I first met, Michaelangelo at the 2006 CTCNet Conference in Washington D.C. where he was presented with their annual Toni Stone Innovative Initiative Award. He was simply dropping some computers off to get looked at but ended up staying a bit to watch an innovative digital story that Naomi had created using nothing but Audacity and Open Office's Impress - another shining example of what VISTAs can create with limited resources - which as we all know, many non-profits need, D.U.S.T.Y. notwithstanding. As a VISTA myself, I of course took the opportunity to tell Michaelangelo a bit about the CTC VISTA project and the possible placement of one with his org. For now however, that shall the topic of another field report...

Until next time, this is Morgan Sully reporting straight from Oakland signing off.

peace!

Field Report #7: A VISTA from the Frontier

Morgan Sully — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:35:14 -0600

Last week, I returned from NAMAC's 2007 conference in Austin: The Frontier is Here. Being a dilettante professional relatively new to the field, this conference was a great view from the frontier. From meeting other media makers and supporters from the ‘old school’ to hanging out with fellow VISTAs working at NAMAC’s member organizations, I was thoroughly ecstatic to have attended. In going forth with my work here at NAMAC, I feel better informed as their new Online Community Manager.

NAMAC Youth by jazminrjones
One thing I was particularly sensitive to, was the intergenerational engagement between those from the ‘old school’ and those from the ‘new school’. While there were many people throughout the conference who had been involved with media far longer than I (some nearly thirty years!) there was a good portion of young people there under twenty. Many of the panels and workshops that the youth presented on were attended mainly by other youth – not as many other, more seasoned professionals. It would have been nice to have more intergenerational ambassadors to bridge dialogue between the two, perhaps provide some context and mentorship. I myself am in my late 20s and did my best to connect some of the VISTAs (mostly in their mid-twenties) to other people at the conference as well as each other.

Only Morgan Loves Me in the Pink Kiddie Hat (thanks for the pic Danielle!)

Meeting up with the other VISTAs was excellent and our panel went well. We even had a personal endorsement at the end of our panel from Jack Walsh, co-director at NAMAC. When I’ve met-up with VISTAs in the past regardless of what state, organization or project they’re from, there’s always been an uncanny feeling of camaraderie. The unique communal support that the CTC VISTA Project provides its members is priceless - both professionally and personally. Ben Sheldon (now Acting Director of the CTC VISTA Project) in his characteristic salty style, was professionally spot on and attentive with his polished schpiel about the project throughout the conference. Danielle (Martin) –the unofficial CTC VISTA queen mother – was as supportive as ever to organizations with questions as well as some of the other presenters on the panel. Her being there on the panel reminded me a bit of when I was in grade school and forgot my lines during a play – I was fortunate enough in that my co-star had some of the lines memorized much better than me, whispering them to me as I stood in that bright, naked spotlight.

One panel that I found particularly engaging was the panel on place-based media. For this panel, the presenters discussed the relationship and responsibility that media makers in rural and urban contexts have to their communities. Being a media maker myself and having lived in both contexts I felt excited to participate in the dialogue that the panel opened up. In the discussions that followed, conversations about class, race and community stewardship as the context for mediating between these sites was nothing less than fascinating. I really enjoyed talking with other media-making ‘in-betweeners’ afterwards.

Me jamming with Michelle Mayer (thanks again for this pic too Danielle!)

I must say that the highlight for me was an improvised performance with one of the installation artists at the conference. At midnight in the conference ballroom, I met with Austin-based video artist Michelle Mayer for an impromptu audio/video jam. Michelle connected her laptop up to the ballroom projector, while I plugged mine in to the main PA. Using nothing but the built-in mic for my laptop and the live, on-site recordings generated from this, I created rhythmic textures for Mayer to ‘dialogue’ with me using her own library of original and sampled video. Mayer had an amazing fluency with her manipulations and was an utter joy to perform with.

I feel the collaboration succinctly captured what the conference was all about: creating, engaging and acting.

Field Report #6: NAMAC Conference Planning

Morgan Sully — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:45:42 -0600

Been a pretty hectic few days, I'm actually in the middle of a move from San Francisco to Oakland while planning for a conference - stressful, but I'm a bit excited about what's ahead in my life path...

Today, I have been contacting our VISTA Panel presenters, coordinating meeting up with them at the conference, answering any questions they may have about the panel and generally doing my best to make sure the presenters are good to go.

I've also been prepping a small one sheet handout for the project geared towards our audience of media arts-heavy folks.

The web site (which I was hired on to develop), has been on a bit of a hold lately with the conference and my RSI thrown in to complicate things, so not much to report on that - I forsee developing a cohesive taxonomy as a challenge.

Yesterday, I did my first task that actually made me feel like a volunteer - assembling a display board for our conference. A nice arts 'n crafts affair with some new copy printed with some fancy fonts (themed with NAMAC's new style guide for all our marketing) for the various pieces of our display board. I also made some great contact with other orgs on the phone to solicit them writing for our Media Arts Movement time line - mentioned in my last post:

http://www.mediaartsmovement.org/

Anyway, off to pack n prepare....